A Rent Receipt Exposes Paul Chan’s Lies

Hui Po-ming, the wife of Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po, who is in charge of the North East New Territories Development Plan (NENTD Plan), was found to own plots of land in Kwu Tung (located within the NENTD plan) with her families. Paul Chan said this morning (23rd July) that even though he signed the land purchasing agreement in 1994, the plots of land were transferred to his wife and her families straight away, and emphasised that he has no real interest in the land in question. He also said that the farmlands he purchased were for his family to use on holidays. A villager showed the journalist from iCable a rent receipt dated 1996, which was signed by Paul Chan Mo-po. The villager also said that Chan claimed to be the owner of the plot of land and demanded to collect rent.

This shows that Chan is the genuine owner of the land as he did not only purchase the land but also personally went to collect rent for the land. He denied his ownership of the land to the public, yet admitted to the villager that he owns the land. The plots of land in question are clearly not for holiday use, but are purchased at extremely low price and leased at a token rent, and obviously Chan and his family were waiting for the land to be acquired by developers or government.

The Cable TV footage shows that the villager from Kwu Tung presented a rent receipt dated 11th May 1996 which was signed by Paul Chan and chopped with Statement Industries Limited. The villager also said that Chan claimed to be the owner of the plot of land, “he didn’t say the land was his wife’s, but said ‘it is my land’.” Chan also asked the villager to sign the lease agreement and pay the rent.

The villager said that Chan leased the land to him for a year and only charge him a token rent of US$8 for half a year. The lease after that time was signed by others who represented Statement Industries. The villager is still farming at the plot of land.

Paul Chan said this morning that although his wife once owned the plots of land, but he has no real interest in them. Therefore, according to Executive Council regulations, he has no obligations to declare interest. Chan also asked the legislators at the LegCo meeting yesterday, “can any of you know everything about your wife and each of your family member and make them all public?”

Chan also claimed that his wife’s family purchased the land in question for holiday use, but in fact leased them to farmers. This is obvious evident that he and his family were accumulating land at low price and waiting for acquisition to make handsome profit.

Apple Daily unveiled in today’s paper that Hui Po-ming, Paul Chan’s wife, owns at least three plots of land in Kwu Tung, but failed to declare his interest to the Executive Council. These three plots of land were purchased by Paul Chan in April 1994 at US$45,000.

After the agreement was reached, Chan transferred the ownership of the land to Statement Industries before completing the transaction. The purchasing agreement was also signed by Chan, who represented Statement Industries. Chan’s wholly owned company Paul & Associates has been a director of Statement Industries. In April 2011, when CY Leung was appointed as the Chief Executive, Paul & Associates resigned from the director’s role.

The shareholders of Statement Industries are three overseas companies, namely Orient Express Holdings Limited, Excellent Assets Limited and Fidelity Management Limited. According Paul Chan’s declaration to the Executive Council, the property he’s living in Leighton Hill is owned by Victorwood Development Limited, which is owned by his wife Hui Po-ming and families. Victorwood Development’s major shareholder is Orient Express Holdings Limited, which suggests that Hui partly owns the three plots of land in Kwu Tung. Chan was appointed as the Secretary for Development in July 2012, and Hui resigned from her director position at Statement Industries on 10th October 2012 and sold all of her stake to her families.

Hui Ka-lun, a director and the Chairman of Statement Industries, and Au Siu-yan, another director of the company, are both close relatives of Hui Po-ming. This shows that Hui’s family continues to have ownership over the three plots of land.